A false Christ

How unbalanced teaching can make the Body of Christ vulnerable for the infiltration of a false Christ from new age.

For several years I have worked among people in the new age, the occult and witchcraft, to bring them the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was absolutely wonderful to see how many of these people opened their hearts to Jesus Christ and became passionate followers of Him. We baptized many and discipled them, seeing them become fruitful disciples of Jesus.

During these years I learned a lot about what is happening spiritually in new age and the occult. To my surprise many of these people also worship a spirit called ‘Jesus Christ’. And they also speak a lot about the love of God. Some of them are very open and hungry to learn about who Jesus truly is. But others cling aggressively to another ‘Christ’, stubbornly refusing tho hear about the true Jesus Christ from the New Testament.

University of Christ

In The Netherlands there is a so called UNIVERSITY OF CHRIST. This university is started by a christian (Jozef Rulof) who one day had a supernatural encounter with spirits who introduced themselves as ‘Masters of the Light.’ These ‘Masters of the Light’ said Jesus Christ had sent them, to reveal the true gospel.

They claimed to be the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus Christ had promised.

I first learned about this University, while my wife and I were witnessing on a new age fair. In the booth of the ‘University of Christ’ there were beautiful paintings displayed, showing landscapes and flowers, often with a cross in them. These paintings were made by Rulof, while he was in a trance. His website says:

‘Rulof himself absolutely did not know how to paint. Everything you see was made when he was in trance and a master of the Light had taken over his body.’

Because the booth displayed portraits of Jesus Christ, along with paintings containing a cross, and it was called ‘University of Christ’ I first got the impression this was a christian ministry. When I talked with the director of this University, he spoke about the love of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. But I became aware of a strong demonic presence. I knew in my spirit something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. So I asked the Holy Spirit what the hidden deception was. To my surprise He immediately answered loud and clear:

‘GO TO THE CORE OF THE MATTER, DAVID.’

I thought by myself: ‘What is the core of the matter?’ I then realized the heart of the problem of mankind is… sin. Sin separates us from God.

Jesus Christ died on the cross, as a sacrifice for our sins.

So in my conversation with the director of this University of Christ, I asked him what the meaning was of the cross, in the beautiful paintings. He gave some vague, mystical explanation, that had no real meaning. I then said: ‘But didn’t Jesus Christ die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, so we could be forgiven and set free from sin?’ He answered with statements like: ‘there is sin, there is no judgment, God never punishes anyone, we don’t need to repent, we only need God’s love, everybody has eternal life, etc.’

I understood the deception: if there is no sin, then nobody is guilty and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ has no meaning.

And if God only loves us and never punishes anyone, then there is no need to repent from our selfish ways, because then there is no judgment anyway. And if everyone has eternal life, why would anyone need to have faith in Jesus Christ? It disturbed me to see how there was a completely false Christ being presented to the world, claiming this Christ shows the true way to knowing the eternal love of God.

False Christ among christians

Why am I mentioning this experience with this false Christ? I will explain… Recently I have been seeing a lot of messages posted by christians on the internet that sound very nice and liberating, but still caused a red light to flash in my spirit. Many only speak about love and grace and never mention the words repentance, holiness, purity or radical change of lifestyle.

They even suggest it is wrong to speak about holiness or repentance, saying that is ‘old covenant’ and ‘the law’.

Although I know very well that we do not live under the law anymore and Christ gave us a new covenant of grace and freedom, I still felt an alarm in my spirit, when I read some of these statements. So I have been asking the Lord what He wants to say about this. One night I believe God spoke to me:

‘The same false Christ you encountered in the occult, wants to become the Lord of the christians.’

Difference between false and true Christ

If that is true, how can we discern this influence? What is the main difference between this false Christ of the occult and the true Jesus Christ we see in the New Testament? In many ways they appear very similar. They both speak about the love of God. They both bring a Holy Spirit that gives supernatural experiences. They both claim to set us free. They both say they bring us to God. And they both say they are the light of the world. So what is the difference between them?

The new age Jesus only speaks about love and doesn’t require repentance from sin.

The true Jesus Christ from the New Testament also gives amazing grace to sinners, more than anyone else. His grace is surely mind-blowing. But the result of His grace is that sinners turn away from their sin and radically change their lifestyle! Jesus doesn’t only offer us love and spiritual enlightenment… He also requires a change of lifestyle and obedience to His commandments.

‘If you love me, you will obey my commandments.’ (John 14:15)

Changing our behavior is so important for the biblical Christ, that He severely warns us for hypocrisy:

‘Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

The false Christ I encountered in new age doesn’t demand obedience to the will of the Father. He denies the need to turn from our sins and become holy in our daily lifestyle. He only speaks about the eternal love of God.

‘Old covenant’ and ‘the law’?

I believe there is a subtle yet dangerous influence of this new age Christ in the church today. The call to radical repentance and holiness is subtly being removed and only teaching about love and grace seem to be allowed. The result is that the biblical fear of the Lord is no longer present, the purifying and consuming fire of God is quenched and a defilement of hearts and minds is taking place, because God’s people watch movies, listen to music, play videogames, etc. that contain various expressions of sin and God only knows what else they do behind closed doors.

Whenever someones speaks about the biblical call to be holy, that is labeled as ‘old covenant thinking’ and ‘being under the law.’

Many christians seem to believe there is no need for applied holiness anymore, because they say ‘in the new covenant we are holy in Christ and this has nothing to do with our behavior.’

Holy Spirit Shit?

We once attended a meeting with a world-famous grace minister, from America. He was all about being drunk in the Spirit and the grace of God. But in his preaching he used words like ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ more than once. He spoke for example about ‘Holy Spirit-shit’ when he said God didn’t care about certain things.

“God shits on it, haha! That’s Holy Spirit Shit, hahaha…”

We felt an oppressive atmosphere in the room, and when the meeting was over, nobody was laughing. We had attended the meeting because we heard about wonderful outpourings of the Holy Spirit through this ministry, and we were very open and hungry for God. It was however a painful disappointment.

The apostles of the New Testament were very different. On the one hand they litteraly layed down their lives to reveal the grace of God, expressed in Jesus Christ. They gave us the revelation of the new covenant, bringing salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and not through works. But these same apostles also confronted christians with sin and called for true holiness in all our behavior:

‘Like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.” If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth…’ (1 Peter 1:15, 16)

‘Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.’ (1 Corinthians 6:8-10)

‘Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.’ (James 1:21)

‘Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.’ (Galatians 1:7)

Along with the gospel of grace, they also preach the call to live holy lives.

On one hand it is indeed true that we are holy because we are in Christ, not because of what we do. On the other hand, all the apostles of the New Covenant clearly say our behavior must be holy as well. The apostle Peter clearly says:

‘Like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior…‘

And the apostle Pauls writes:

‘Beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.’ (2 Corinthians 7:1)

The author of the letter to the Hebrews even says:

‘Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.’ (Hebrews 12:14)

All throughout the New Testament the apostles of Jesus Christ and Jesus Himself make it clear that the purpose of grace is that we would become blameless children of God, not only in words and belief, but also in our deeds. If holiness is not visible in our behavior, we are fooling ourselves. That’s why the apostles all say ‘don’t be deceived…’

True worship is not only saying the right words or believing the right things, but also living right!

Jesus calls us to FOLLOW Him, not just ‘receive’ Him. True worship is obedience. God’s grace is expressed in this, that He washes us from our sins, IF we confess them… But according to the apostle John we will never be washed from our sins, if we deny them:

‘If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.’ (1 John 1:6-10)

How can we be free from false Christs?

The only way to remain free from the influence of all kinds of ‘false Christs’ and deceiving spirits, is by strictly holding on to the FULL TEACHINGS OF JESUS CHRIST as recorded in the Gospels and the FULL TEACHINGS of the apostles as recorded in their letters. The moment we begin to ignore their messages, that are severe and hard to digest, we open the door for deception.

We need both the revelation of extreme grace and the call to be holy as He is holy. Faith and obedience are both important.

We are not saved through works, but through faith. But real faith becomes visible in our obedience to God’s commands to be loving, honest and pure. Jesus was not joking, when He said ‘If you love me, you will obey my commandments.’ (John 14:15)

Clarification of misunderstandings

Because I have seen how some people misunderstand what I have explained and say I suffer from an ‘old covenant’ mindset, I will explain a bit more about who I am and how I see God work in my life.

First of all I want to say that my ministry is all about the love of God. I am one of the most passionate love-ministers you may come across. Just subscribe to my emails, and you’ll see how I write about the love of God. I get several emails every day from readers who say they are healed and transformed by the love of God, through my prophetic words. God’s love is my message and my life. I have written four prophetic books, that contain only words from the Lord in which He speaks about His outrageous love for us. The leader of the pentacostal churches in the Netherlands once called me ‘the apostle of love’.

That is who I am. I am a love and grace preacher big time! So I don’t want to attack messengers of grace.

But being a passionate minister of the love and grace of God, I also know Him as a consuming fire who deeply hates evil and wants to radically remove it from our lives. I also know God as a very pure light who exposes darkness in order to remove every form of defilement in our lives.

‘This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.’ (1 John 1:5)

‘Worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.” (Hebrews 12:28)

The consuming fire of God

In my ministry I have seen the Lord deal in a severe way with unrigtheousness. I will share some of the things we have experienced with the Lord, concerning His zeal for holiness among us, hoping this will help some to understand my heart in this.

I was ministering in a meeting where the Spirit of the Lord suddenly said in a loud voice, through my wife:

‘YOU WITNESS OF MY BURNING LOVE,
DON’T BE A FOOL TO PLAY WITH ME.

I am a consuming fire!

No flesh can stand before Me and look Me in the eye.

All the earth will tremble before Me.’

The presence of the Lord was so heavy, my wife could not stand on her feet, and almost everone else was also on the floor, with their face down, in the presence of the Holy One. After the meeting I wondered why God spoke so very serious…

‘You witness of My burning love, DON’T BE A FOOL TO PLAY WITH ME.’

Only a few weeks later we heard that the pastor of that church was in adultery with a young woman in his church and his wife was divorcing him. This pastor however always spoke about the love of the Father… But he lived in severe sexual sin. And God rebuked him very strongly… ‘Don’t be a fool to play with Me!’

On another occasion we saw a man die, after commiting adultery and repeatedly ignoring the warnings of the Lord. He was always very spiritual and charismatic. One night my wife had a dream about him, and she saw him riding on a horse, through the sky, with a sword in his hand. She heard the voice of the Lord, shouting:

‘Why go to war with flying colours, not willing to repent?’

We invited the man and shared the dream with him. The moment my wife said these words, there was a loud thunderclap… And it was a bright blue sky. Not one cloud in the sky, all day! Only the very moment my wife spoke, there was one very loud thunderclap. The man heard it and was shocked… But he didn’t listen. Weeks later my wife and I both had a word from the Lord, about the severe consequences of sin and following destruction. We had no clue why the Lord gave us these serious passages from scripture. That same day the man called us on the phone and asked us if we could disciple a woman with whom he had comitted adultery… He had brought her to the Lord, he said, and now asked us to counsel her. But he was married!

We shared with him the words God had given us, earlier that day. God warned him that destruction would come on his life, if he continued in sin. Two weeks later he was found dead… He lay naked besides a road, with his arms cut off.

God loved him and wanted to save him. But he chose sin and his end was horrible.

Another example: one day I was ministering in our church, and the Lord gave me a message about repentance. My wife heard the Lord say to her that a man in the meeting was in pornography, and she heard the words: ‘you cannot play with fire!!!’ But she didn’t dare to say it to him. Later in the meeting the man suddenly ran to me, while I was preaching, grabbed my arm and said in a loud voice (so everyone heard it) “I want to confess my sins! I am a pastor, but I am into pornography” I asked the worship leader to pray for him. He said: ‘I see an angel standing next to you. If you truly mean it, this angel will kick in your stomach and you will be free.’ The pastor said he meant it.

The next moment he cried out as if a hammer hit him in his stomach and he fell forward on his face.

On another occasion the Lord spoke to our church about the movies we watched. He said He hates the movies with all the violence and sexual impurity (even subtle, like jokes or flirting). We repented and some even threw dvd’s away with a total value of ten thousand dollars. One of our young prophets in training had a habit of watching war movies. He threw them away. Some weeks later his brother gave him a brand new flat screen and dvd-set. He felt the desire to watch a war movie again, bought it and put it in his brand new set. While he sat in his chair, he saw smoke coming from the new TV… It burned up before his eyes. He called us and said he felt the Lord had done this, to protect him from the spirits of death, who enter through these movies.

The fullness of Christ

Why is it so important that we preach the fullness of the New Testament and not create a new one-legged message, that sounds much nicer? Because the goal of true biblical teaching is to make the Body of Christ mature and strong, and reveal Jesus Christ in His fullness:

‘He appointed some to be apostles, others to be prophets, others to be evangelists, others to be pastors and teachers.

He did this to prepare all God’s people for the work of Christian service, in order to build up the body of Christ.

And so we shall all come together to that oneness in our faith and in our knowledge of the Son of God; we shall become mature people, reaching to the very height of Christ’s full stature. 

Then we shall no longer be children, carried by the waves and blown about by every shifting wind of the teaching of deceitful people, who lead others into error by the tricks they invent.

Instead, by speaking the truth in a spirit of love, we must grow up in every way to Christ, who is the head.’ (Ephesians 4:11-15)

When we only speak about the grace of God and no longer call to be true, honest and pure, we don’t reveal the fullness of Christ.

The result will be a weak church, not able to discern evil infiltrations, and being vulnerable to all kinds of hidden evil practices in our midst. Christans will remain in bondage, instead of rising up in the full freedom of Christ.

Jesus Christ has eyes of fire!

In the New Testament Jesus Christ is revealed as the One who has eyes of fire:

‘These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire …’ (Revelation 2:18)

What does this mean? It means that Jesus Christ has eyes that discern all deception, burning right through all the masks people wear. In order to see the Body of Christ become truly victorious, we also need the eyes of fire, that pierce through every lying demonic veil. Because Jesus Christ sees everything as it truly is, He also exposes and confronts it rigorously. For example when He speaks about the false prophetess Izebel, who was in the church of Thyatira:

‘I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds.’ (Revelation 2:22)

That is the Christ we serve, under the covenant of grace!

We can try to get rid of this severeness of Jesus Christ, by claiming He doesn’t speak to us like this to us today, because we are under the new covenant. But the truth is the churches in Revelation were under the new covenant and it was Jesus Christ Himself (the One who made the new covenant) who said these words.

God always hated evil and will always hate evil. That was true in the old covenant and it is true in the new covenant.

God Himself has not changed. His hatred towards darkness, deception and unrighteousness has not changed at all. Through Christ He gives us the grace to be forgiven and transformed. But this grace will not help us, if we remain in our sins and refuse to change.

Unbalanced grace-preaching opened the door to a false Christ

The danger of unbalanced teaching is that it may seem nice and innocent at first, but it’s a seed that can grow into a huge tree. Recently a young man, which I baptised and helped follow Christ, started reading books of a famous grace preacher. I encouraged him to read the Bible more, because only the Bible gives us the true balance between grace and repentance. Some time later he posted a link from a christian preacher who says nobody needs to repent because all have been converted in Christ and nobody needs to be reborn, because we are all reborn in Christ. I warned the young man for this deception. Months later he posted a statement about progressive christianity which was the worst deception I ever saw. The statement said everybody is saved, regardless of sexual orientation and belief. Jesus Christ was just one of the many sources of wisdom, etc.

For this young man the grace book opened a door to downright deception.

I don’t say every grace minister preaches deception. But I do believe that if we have no biblical balance in our messages, we can open the door for immature christians to go astray into the wilderness of all kinds of wrong teachings. We need to teach them to hold on to the original teachings of Jesus Christ and the apostles, instead of following easier and nicer teachings that are blowing in the air.

Dream about false Christ

Recently I had a dream in which I saw another young man, that I discipled years ago. He had come to the Lord in a very pure way and was a passionate follower of Jesus. In the dream he represented the current generation of young christians. He said very proud that he was able to transport himself in the spirit to Paris. I asked him who Jesus was for him at this moment. He answered:

‘Jesus is the representation of the fourth dimension. Thanks to Jesus we can now enter the supernatural!’

I told him Jesus is first of all the Son of God who came to die as the Lamb of God for our sins. The moment I said this, the young man lost his ability to transport himself to Paris.

God gave me this dream, to show me another danger of the current generation. Some don’t hear the message of turning from sin, and think Jesus is just the door to supernatural experiences and other cool stuff. But that is not what it’s about. As the Holy Spirit told me:

‘Go to the core of the matter…’ The heart of the problem of mankind is… sin. Sin separates us from God.

‘Everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence. But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free.’ (Romans 3:23)

Knowing God as He truly is

My desire is to know God as He truly is, in all His fullness. Not only the nice and easy parts. And I want the Body of Christ to rise up in all the fullness of Christ, so His glory will explode through us, towards all mankind. Only if we preach the full truth, will this happen. As long as we keep swinging from one extreme to another, the Body of Christ will be lame and stumble.

Many reformations have swept through the church the past centuries. They brought a lot of good revelations. But unfortunately they also often brought lies into the church.

Sometimes God needs to bring one reformation to restore the damage done by a previous reformation.

I pray we will grow up and stop swinging to extremes, but learn to discern what the Spirit of God is saying in a reformation, and what He is NOT saying. Yes, the Holy Spirit is bringing a deeper revelation of the new covenant and the incredible love of the Father. That is wonderful and I am glad to be a vessel of the wonderful love of God that heals us and sets us free.

But I keep reading the entire Bible, not throwing away those verses that seem to be different from what the Holy Spirit is showing me.

I know that God is a God seeming paradoxes. He is the Lion and the Lamb, the Judge and the Advocate, etc. There is not one Spirit of God burning before His throne, but there are seven Spirits burning (Revelation 4:5). This means seven different workings of God. We need all of them.

And if the New Testament shows us that holiness in all our behavior is a demand from God, then we must take hold of this, just as much as we take hold of the message of God’s overwhelming grace. They go hand in hand.

Only if we embrace the fullness of God, will we know Him as He truly is.